Five Years, Two Months, Three Days
by S. Faith
Summary: Some dates stand out as a milestone more than others. Inspired by dialogue in iBridget Jones' Baby/i, so spoilers.


**Five Years, Two Months, Three Days**

By S. Faith, © 2016

Words: 2,398

Rating: M/R

Summary: Some dates stand out as a milestone more than others.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Notes: Inspired by dialogue in _Bridget Jones' Baby_. Spoilers, obviously!

* * *

 **June, 2014**

They're all looking at me like someone's died. Has someone died? I'm afraid to approach, almost, but they've seen me, and I can hardly pretend I haven't seen them seeing me.

Fuck.

"Hiii," I say with forced brightness—my smile feels almost rictus—as I come closer, drink in hand, to where Shazzer, Jude, Tom are standing at one of those tall bar tables. "What's going on?"

They look to each other, then to me, but no one says a thing.

"You're scaring me," I say. Can barely think over the music. I ask again, "What's going on?"

By some unspoken agreement, Shazzer speaks up. "You've got to promise not to hate me for what I'm about to tell you."

I feel like screaming "What? WHAT? _WHAT?!_ ", but only say, "Tell me? Tell me what?"

"Put down your drink."

"What?"

"Put it down. Give me your hand."

I do as she asks. I'm genuinely terrified now. " _Jesus_ ," I say. "What's. Going. On."

"Bridge," says Shazzer. "Promise me."

"I promise!"

It's then my world falls apart.

"Mark Darcy got married again."

I can scarcely comprehend what she's said. It seems like nonsense words. Mark? Married again? I sound like a robot on the fritz when I speak again.

"What are you talking about, married? Mark? How is—that can't be. My mother… I—"

The truth of it must have trickled through, because now I'm sitting in a chair with Shaz next to me, feeling a bit ill.

"Even if your mum knew," Jude said, "I doubt she'd have told you. But I doubt she knows. Giles—" Her husband, not the same one Mark had once worked with. "—told me he saw Mark… wearing a wedding band. When he asked Mark about it, he tried to deflect, but… it's true. He's apparently done a civil wedding thing with some lawyer called Camilla from the Netherlands. All done very privately."

My eyes fill with unexpected tears that overflow onto my cheeks. Giles, the bearer of bad news. Oh my God. It's really, really over. There's no chance now; he's over me. In fact, he's _so_ over me he's married someone else.

"Give me my drink."

I don't demand it. I ask for it quietly, which is somehow more terrifying to them, because they all snap into action. Someone hands it to me. I slam it back, then bring the glass down hard on the table.

"Another."

" _Bridget_." Jude.

"Go and get her another," Tom says, taking my hand. "She needs it."

Someone hasn't died. Some _thing_ has.

…

We tried. We hung on, sputtered along for about five years before I could bear the loneliness of being with Mark no longer.

That isn't a mistype. I loved Mark— _love_ him—but he was difficult to be in a relationship with, because he was never _there_ , even when he was. Always on the phone, always dashing off across the globe for work. Fucking Daniel Cleaver, right again. But I wasn't feeling bored. I was feeling abandoned.

I can't even complain, not really, that Mark committed to someone else and not to me, because we tried the engagement thing. I was the one to walk away, for all the reasons I gave here.

It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like shitting hell, even after three years. It's almost, almost enough to make me want to take up smoking again. But I'm not going to. I've conquered that demon, and I'm not giving anyone the satisfaction of taking it away. Not even Mark.

I marked Friday, 8 April 2011 in my diary. The day we split. The day I gave up my beloved Silk Cut.

 **June, 2016**

When it rains, it pours.

First it was the memorial; on my birthday, no less. He was the last person I expected to see turn up to bid goodbye to Daniel, his former best friend, but Jude's right: he always did want to do the right thing. It was the first time I'd seen him in… well, since we'd split. Understandably, he'd stopped coming to the Turkey Curry Buffet. I wasn't sure if I was grateful or sad, though I felt Elaine Darcy's sympathetic gaze most acutely; both she and my mother continued to hold out hope for a reconciliation, no matter how remote a chance.

Anyway. He'd turned up to the memorial with his wife in tow. The knife in my side twisted just a bit at the sight of her. But I hadn't really thought about him again, at least not consciously, until today.

Ah, today. Circumstances have brought us together again, this time to a christening, and this time, all on his own. It was Giles' fault again; this time, that Mark was there at all, but my current situation is entirely my fault.

I was determined to play it cool, to be nice, and to be civil; Mark had been oddly nervous, as prone to saying the wrong thing as he always had been. But it was my decision to take a walk with him. To get some air away from the rest of the guests after both of us having had a bit too much to drink.

He has the nerve to ask me for a cigarette. But how would he know? I tell him I'd quit, with the exact date count (but who's counting, right?), but if it means anything to him, he doesn't let on.

No more than five minutes later he's trying to get a train out of my hair, and then he's trying to stick his (oh _God_ , the history of this phrase) tongue down my throat. And then he tells me he's divorcing the second Mrs Darcy. I tell him I'm sorry to hear it, even if he's not sorry at all. He looks so vulnerable and yet so hopeful. When he tries to kiss me again, I let him, because I want him to.

The days, weeks, years fall away. I still love him, still miss him, still ache for him. And when he suggests in a low, throaty voice that we take it inside, I agree. When he passes me his room key, I silently accept it.

Now I wait in the bedroom for him. He _was_ right behind me, though Giles had pulled him aside to tell him something as I ascended the staircase. Now in the silence and the dimness of his room… I could take the time to think about what I'm about to do, but I don't care to analyse it. I've got condoms. Hedonism, hurrah! I'm focused more on getting the bloody train out of my hair, because, honestly, he's a fan of the missionary position, and that train's going to really dig in if I don't.

As soon as he's in the room, he takes me in his arms. Why the fuck did I have to wear a dress with a thousand buttons? But it's all right. We make undressing a giggly, fun game, and I love the feel of his soft hands on my skin. Especially when they get more urgent. More ardent.

Ahh. Hasn't lost his touch. We haven't lost our rhythm. We go at it for hours—I have to tease him about it, and he has to tease me for faking _not_ coming, because who would want him to stop? He knows exactly which buttons to push, and how hard, how long to push them.

But then his alarm goes off, alerting to a flight in the morning to Khartoum. And then before he drifts off to sleep, he says he's missed me. It's like a one-two reality punch, and suddenly I can't bear the thought of all that loneliness again.

So like a complete coward, I leave before he wakes up. I do leave a note. I think he'll understand. Nothing else has changed sufficiently to make us work again.

I manage to make it to my car, make it halfway home, before the tears come. I've made lists time and again, why Mark and me will never work. But there's one thing that makes me wish we could: the fact that I love him.

Always have. Always will.

 **March, 2017**

Surprise!

He wasn't planned, but now he's here, and as I take him into my arms for the first time, I tremble from the effort, still feeling the effect of the endorphins, the waning pain of childbirth. He's perfect. And I know however things turn out, he is going to be a lucky boy.

The door opens and the baby's possible fathers enter the room, but I look up and instantly meet the gaze of the one who has promised to be there for this baby, biological dad or not, and I smile. Mark smiles too. Ever considerate, he allows Jack to enter first, then comes and takes residence next to me.

Then the friends arrive, and my parents, and then the doctor comes to whisk Mark and Jack away for the test to determine who gets to be listed on the birth certificate.

"This has got me on tenterhooks!" says Shazzer. "How long until we _know_?"

As my mum takes the baby into her arms to hand to my dad, I shrug a little. "I don't know."

"You're being _so_ cool about this, Bridge," says Tom. "Is it the drugs?"

I don't answer, let him assume that to be the case. I can afford to be cool about it. Whatever happens next, Mark will be his daddy, if not his actual father. I am again filled with love, though I can't lie; I'm scared about the tangled road before us. Those lists of mine haven't gone away. But we'll make it work, somehow. For the baby, we'll have to.

And then, in what seems too impossibly short a time, they're back.

"So?" asks my mum.

Mark's brow furrows slightly. "Unfortunately, test results aren't instantaneous." How did I not know this? "Normally it's five working days."

Jack speaks up. "We sprung for the express test," he says. "Twelve to seventy-two hours."

"Oh my God, that _long_?" blurts Shazzer.

"It's fine," I say. I suddenly feel calm, centred, thinking fondly of my cool, ice-queen hero, Kathleen Tynan. "It'll be fine."

…

By the time I'm at home with the baby two days later, I'm a mess every time my phone rings. Mark's wrapping things up with work so that he can do parental leave, and messages me to let me know he's on the way. Jack messaged earlier, wanting to know if I'd heard anything yet. At least the text tone is different from my ringer and keeps me from going mental.

I'm actually in the middle of breastfeeding when my phone begins to ring. I struggle to reach for the phone without waking him up, then swipe my thumb to answer the call, my heart racing a million miles a minute.

"Ms Jones? I have your results."

I swallow the lump forming in my throat as I nod, before remembering that they can't actually hear me nodding. "All right, very well, go ahead," I stumble verbally.

I swear I hold my breath until she tells me, says she'll send confirmation by post, and then I thank her and put the phone down.

Autopilot takes over, thank God, enough for me to finish with the feeding, the burping (it's amazing how fast something can become a habit), the putting-down-to-sleep. I just come out of the nursery when I hear a key in the door. Mark.

He comes in, and the minute his eyes find mine, I blurt out, "They called," and then burst out into tears.

He comes up to me, takes me in his arms, presses his fingers into my back. "It's all right," he says reassuringly. "I told you, I'll love him just the same."

I realise then that I might not have been as clear as I could have been.

I push away from him. "Mark, no, these are happy tears," I say, grinning at last. "He's _your_ son."

"He's…"

"Your. Son," I enunciate.

It's his turn to grin. "Our son," he says, and I don't know if he's correcting me, or reminding me of what he said at the antenatal scan. "Oh, love, this is wonderful news," he says. "It makes things so much less complicated."

"Oh, God, I should tell Jack."

"Give me this moment first, please," he says, then draws me close again. As he holds me, I close my eyes, content in his warmth. After some moment, he speaks in a murmur. "Bridget. I have a confession."

Panic wells in me, and I push back from him, thoughts racing. He's not really divorced. He's going back to Camilla. He's going to America, like he'd planned all those years ago. "Oh my God, _what_?"

"For the second time in my life, I have looked in your diary when I probably shouldn't have." At my surprise, he adds hastily: "Not on purpose. It was lying on a shelf, open to a specific page, with our photo stuck in the centre like a bookmark. When I moved it to get to something else…"

My stomach plummets to the floor. The list. The bloody list of why we don't work. I'm sure it shows on my face.

"I'm sorry," he adds. "But by the same token… I'm glad to have seen it. Because now I know what I need to correct. I know, I know, you've said to me in so many words why we haven't worked. But to see that list in black and white… I'm sorry, Bridget. More than I can ever say. And I'll work on crossing out every item on that list. I promise."

"You can't promise you won't go away for work," I say.

"I can certainly choose which jobs I take." He smiles. "Are you trying to talk me out of it?"

"No, of course not!" Then I embrace him again. I wish at that moment that we could fall into bed and shag like mad. But shagging like mad is what got me in my current state. (A joke.)

"Maybe…" he begins. "Maybe you could play me something that you're fond of, musically. Something from _after_ 1985\. Please take the menstruation chorus out of my head."

I laugh, rear my head back, and, in lieu of mad shagging, kiss him.

 **The end.**

 **End Notes:**

Dialogue from the movie:

MARK: I don't suppose you happen to have a cigarette?  
BRIDGET: No. Gave up, eighteen-hundred and ninety-one days ago.  
MARK: Not that you were counting.

(Interestingly, the shooting script says 691 days.)

Transcribed from diary page:

 **Reasons why Mark Darcy and I could never work.**

His work comes first.  
He's socially inept.  
He doesn't like parties.  
He always wants to go home at a "sensible time."  
He only reads history books.  
He doesn't make new friends.  
He doesn't know or like any music after 1985.  
He's never spontaneous.  
He only buys me presents which are useful.  
I never know if he'll come home alive.  
I'm mostly alone, even when we're together.

(That penultimate one really gets me.)


End file.
